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What is OPUS Augsburg?

This document server offers to publish electronically generated and qualified documents on its online publication system. This service is for university members only and free of charge. After publication, the texts are available worldwide on the Internet and will be archived permanently by the library. The documents are indexed and made accessible in library catalogues and Web search engines.

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What are the benefits of using OPUS Augsburg?

Worldwide Access
Your publicatons are made openly accessible online and are immediately available to scholars, scientists, students and the interested public. They can be comfortably accessed from any workplace which has an Internet connection.
Indexing
OPUS Augsburg offers several search views and facets for comfortable easy browsing and searching. Since documents are indexed using metadata, abstracts and key words which comply with international standards they can be located via internet search engines like Google, GoogleScholar etc. At the same time they are searchable and findable via library catalogues (Katalog der UB Augsburg (OPAC), Katalog des Bibliotheksverbundes Bayern (Gateway Bayern)) and national and international databases.
Long-term document availability
Your electronic publication will be archived and protected against modification or manipulation. It will be assigned a persistent identifier (Uniform Resource Name, URN), registered with the German National Library, ensuring long-term accessibility independent of the actual location in which the document is deposited. Furthermore, electronic doctoral and habilitation theses will be submitted to the German National Library, which provides long-term archival storage.
Save time and money
OPUS is completely free of charge, and saves you all costs inherent in conventional publishing.
List of publications
You can link to your publications from your homepage, relying on the permanent access and persistent urls OPUS Augsburg guarantees. In case of a parallel, printed version you may place a reference to the published edition on the frontdoor page of your document.
Citation rates
Several studies have established higher citation rates for open access publications compared to works only published in printed form. The OpCit Project "The Open Citation Project - Reference Linking and Citation Analysis for Open Archives" hosts a bibliography of studies on impact analysis. Publication in OPUS Augsburg means increased visibility and higher citation rates, thus enhancing the reputation of authors and their institutions.

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Can documents be deleted or modified?

To preserve authenticity and citability documents may not be modified or deleted after publication. Corrections require re-submission and re-publication of the document on OPUS, corresponding to a new edition of a printed publication.

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Is it possible to cite OPUS Augsburg documents?

Basically electronic documents can be cited as well as printed documents. Objections against citing e-documents lie in the fact that they are regarded as "virtual, moving targets". Electronic collections like OPUS are trying to give electronic documents a more stable presence on the net. If you want to cite electronic documents you should use for instance:

  • Schneider, Daniele: Jahn Teller Effekt im erweiterten Hubbard Modell [online]. – Augsburg, Univ., Diss., 2007
    URL: http://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/volltexte/2007/582/
    URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:384-opus-5826
    [Zugriff 20.03.12]

Read more at Zitieren von Onlinequellen by Open-Access-Server SciDok.

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Hints for searching

Boolean Operators AND, OR, NOT

When you use the Simple Search, all terms are combined by AND automatically. For a more tightly focused search you may use the Boolean Operators to combine different search terms.

AND: The document has to contain all search terms.

OR: The document has to contain one of the search terms. This function broadens your search and is recommended, when there are different terms for the same meaning.

article OR paper

NOT: narrows your search by excluding search terms. Useful to reduce a large result list: Documents, which contain the one term, may not contain the other.

article NOT paper
The Boolean Operators work for the Advanced Search as well. You may use them to combine different search terms within one search field. For example, to search for documents of the author "Doe" in the years 2002 or 2003, use the query:
Author: Doe
Year: 2002 OR 2003

Wildcards

In the field 'Search:', you may use the symbols '*' and '?' as wildcards. Use them in place of a character or characters that are unknown or that may differ. You cannot use them in front of a word or search string.

Example 1: chemi* finds chemical but also chemistry or chemist.
Example 2: licen?e finds licence and license.

You may use double quotes (") to search for phrases.

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How do I publish my thesis in OPUS Augsburg?

All you need to know about publishing your thesis in OPUS can be found in our information sheet.

If you're looking for a short overview of requirements please refer to our checklist.

Wir empfehlen Ihnen, das Titelblatt Ihrer Dissertation nach folgendem Vorbild zu gestalten: Mustertitelblatt. Es steht Ihnen selbstverständlich frei vom vorgeschlagenen Layout abzuweichen, doch sollten die aufgeführten Daten alle enthalten sein.

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How do I publish other documents in OPUS Augsburg?

All you need to know about publication of electronic documents in OPUS can be found in our information sheet.

If you're looking for a short overview of requirements please refer to our checklist.

If you would like to publish a preprint of the Institute of Mathematics, please refer to this manual (German).

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Available document types

Doctoral Thesis
Document type Doctoral Thesis refers to a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.
Habilitation
Document type Habilitation refers to the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve. The level of scholarship has to be considerably higher than that required for a research doctoral (PhD) thesis.
Master's Thesis
Document type Master's Thesis refers to the medium level of a written thesis and also includes written theses completed before the Bologna process for academic degrees equivalent to the current master degree (Magister, Uni-Diplom, Staatsexamen).
Bachelor's Thesis
Document type Bachelor's Thesis refers to the lowest level of a written thesis (usually after 3 years of study).
Study Thesis
Document type Study Thesis refers to textual elaborations that are prepared as part of a course of study (term papers, seminar reports, investigation and project reports) and are not categorized as thesis.
Course Material
Document type Course Material refers to teaching material in the broadest sense, e.g. lecture recordings as video or audio files, exercise material, preparation or exam material. Lecture texts as such, however, are represented by document type Lecture.
Lecture
Document type Lecture includes university speeches, lectures and inaugural lectures.
(scientific) Article
Includes documents that have been published as article, editorial, register, table of contents or editorial section of a scientific journal or scientific periodical (postprint).
Working Paper
A preliminary scientific or technical paper that is published in a series of the institution where the research is done. Also known as research paper, research memorandum or discussion paper. The difference with a preprint is that a Working Paper is published in an institutional series. Examples are: working papers, research papers, research memoranda and discussion papers.
Preprint
Like a Working Paper a Preprint is a preliminary scientific or technical paper, but it is not published in an institutional series. The paper is intended to be published in a scientific journal or as a chapter in a book.
Report
Document type Report includes textual material that cannot be categorized as any of the other types, e.g. reports, external research reports, internal reports, memos, statistical reports, project completion reports, technical documentations and instructions.
Conference Object
All kind of documents related to a conference, i.e. conference papers, conference reports, conference lecture, papers published in conference proceedings, conference contributions, reports of abstracts of conference papers and conference posters.
Book
Document type Book (Monograph) is intended for classic monographic publications.
Part of a Book
Document type Part of a Book (Chapter) represents documents that have been prepared within the framework of a monographic publication, such as chapters or contributions to compilations.
Periodical
Refers to a complete volume or issue of a journal or periodical. Metadata describe the journal or periodical itself.
Contribution to a (non-scientific) Periodical
Document type Contribution to (non-scientific) Periodical refers to contributions in newspapers, weekly magazines or other non-scientific periodicals.
Review
Document type Review refers to reviews of books or article and/or summaries of a publication that have not been written by the author.


The document type descriptions are based on the OPUS documentation.

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How do I generate a PDF file?

Information on publishing pdf files:

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I have some more questions - whom shall I contact?

Questions and suggestions: opus@bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de.

  • Katrin Schade
    Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg
    Teilbibliothek Geisteswissenschaften, Raum 3115
    Tel.: 0821 - 598 5362

    or:

  • Andreas Biehl
    Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg
    Teilbibliothek Naturwissenschaften, Raum 1031
    Tel.: 0821 - 598 2408

    or:

  • Katharina Urch
    Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg
    Teilbibliothek Geisteswissenschaften, Raum 3114
    Tel.: 0821 - 598 5364

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How do I publish my work here?

Please click on the publication link on the start page.
First you are requested to choose a document type. Right beneath that you can upload your document files. After accepting our publication policy you may click on "Next step". What follows now is the actual form. You have to fill in data about your publication here (so called metadata), which is used to describe your work in catalouges and other bibliographic directories. Describe the document you want to upload using the categories and fields on the publication form. Depending on the document type, some of these fields are mandatory and therefore have to be filled in. Please describe your document as clearly as possible. Mandatory fields are for example:

  • the language of the document (must be chosen from a list)
  • the title of your publication and the language of the title
  • the abstract of the document
  • the publication date of your document (normally the day you publish it online)
  • the licence, under which you want to publish your document (must be chosen from a list)
If you are unsure what to fill in certain form fields, hover your mouse cursor over a field and an explaining help text (tool tip) will be shown.
After you have finished the form, all data will be displayed once again for a check-up and you then can correct them if necessary or simply save them directly.

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What is metadata?

Metadata can be defined as

  • data describing one or more ressources
    • or as
  • data associated with an object and describing it
Basically metadata is describing documents, objects or services and contains information about their content, structure or form. More abstractly metadata is a description of data or "data about data". Bibliographic data sets and catalog entries in library catalogs can be seen as a kind of metadata.

This repository is using metadata in the Dublin Core Metedata Element Set (short Dublin Core (DC)) which has fifteen basic elements. Dublin Core is the result of international efforts to reach a collective consensus in describing electronic objects (in the broadest sense). The Library of Congress (LoC), the Online Cataloging Library Center (OCLC) and several national libraries are dealing with Dublin Core in many projects and are close to introduce the system respectively.

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You should try to obtain a permission to reprint for the illustrations you want to use in your thesis. Information on how to do so may be found at Dissonline - Digitale Dissertationen im Internet.

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In most cases this is no problem. Please ensure in any case, if your publisher allows a parallel publication! To do that you can use the SHERPA/ROMEO list.

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The Copyright Law (Urheberrechtsgesetz) applies to electronic publications as well as printed documents. In particular please refer to Article 53 Reproduction for Private and Other Personal Uses.

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In OPUS Augsburg the following licenses are available. The column POD specifies, if print-on-demand is allowed. We currently do not offer a print-on-demand service. POD
Publishing license for publications including print on demand (more info) licence form Yes
With this publishing licence you assign Augsburg University the non-exclusive right to make your work publicly available in data networks. Naturally you as author hold all copyrights and are entitled to publish your work elsewhere, to revise or change your work or to make use of your work in any other way. You give users the possibility to create single copies of your work for private or scientific use by utilizing an external print-on-demand service. This is an additional service on a non-commercial basis.
Publishing license for publications excluding print on demand (more info) licence form No
With this publishing licence you assign Augsburg University the non-exclusive right to make your work publicly available in data networks. Naturally you as author hold all copyrights and are entiteled to publish your work elsewhere, to revise or change your work or to make use of your work in any other way. The addditional print-on-demand service is excluded with this license.
Creative Commons - Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivative Works (more info) licence form Yes
This license allows to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work under the following conditions: The work must be attributed in the manner specified by the author or licensor. The work may not be used for commercial purposes. The work may not be altered, transformed, or built upon. This license is based on the international Creative Commons initiative.
Creative Commons - Attribution (more info) licence form Yes
This license allows to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, to make derivative works and make commercial use of the work under the following conditions: The work must be attributed in the manner specified by the author or licensor. This license is based on the international Creative Commons initiative.

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What does Open Access mean?

"Open access" to scientific and scholarly literature means "its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited" (Budapest Open Access Initiative)

Read more here: open-access.net

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Policies

I assign Augsburg University (if desired by the Deutsche Nationalbibibliothek Frankfurt resp. Leipzig and/or the special subject collections library also them) the right to store the uploaded file(s) in electronic form and to make them publicly available in data networks. I further assign Augsburg University the right to convert the file(s) for long term preservation purposes (the original archive will persist). I declare that copyright and licensing issues related to my work have been resolved and that therefore no rights on the part of any third parties impede the publication.

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Documentation

This document server is based on the repository software OPUS 4.2. OPUS is documented here: http://opus4.kobv.de.

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Imprint



Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg

86135 Augsburg

Telefon (Information): +49 821 598-5320
Telefon (Sekretariat): +49 821 598-5305, -5306
Telefax (Sekretariat): +49 821 598-5354

Internet: http://www.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de

Die Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg ist eine zentrale Einrichtung der Universität Augsburg. Die Bibliothek wird durch den Direktor Herrn Dr. Ulrich Hohoff gesetzlich vertreten.

Allgemeiner Haftungshinweis und Haftungsausschluß:

Trotz sorgfältiger inhaltlicher Kontrolle übernehmen wir keine Haftung für die Inhalte externer Links. Für den Inhalt der verlinkten Seiten sind ausschließlich deren Betreiber verantwortlich.

Diese Webseiten sind mit größtmöglicher Sorgfalt zusammengestellt. Trotzdem können wir keine Gewähr für die Richtigkeit, Vollständigkeit und Aktualität unserer Webseiten übernehmen.

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